


Ice As Sharp As My Steel Heart

by TigressJade



Series: Spangled Stars and Altered Stripes AU's [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Drabble, Drabble Collection, From Russia With Love - Freeform, Gen, M/M, Steve kicks Hydra's ass, Steve takes out Zola's team, Stucky - Freeform, The Author Regrets Nothing, There is no winter soldier in this au, Til the End of the Line, stucky au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigressJade/pseuds/TigressJade
Summary: Steve Rogers barely escapes the plane he crashed in the ice and spends months hiking through Siberia to get back to the known world.  Then he hears word of someone he thought he'd lost forever, renewing his will to fight once more.





	Ice As Sharp As My Steel Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This au is based on a flashback scene from the Captain America the Winter Soldier film where Bucky looks out from his cryopod and sees the lab around him as well as the Hydra scientists that were working on him. Every time I watch it, I always thought it would awesome if someone, Steve, Howard Stark, Peggy, or anyone, managed to come in before Hydra managed to put Bucky back in the ice during and save him.

Bucky reached a hand toward the eye-level glass plate embedded in the case holding him, and for a moment he felt an edge of chilled air sweeping through every part of him, only to have it banished and replaced with the previously odd stiffness of metal at his back. The moving figures, people he’d never seen before even during his fuzzy shifts of consciousness, were falling to the ground in the wake of an eruption of electrostatic, blood and fire. A black sphere collectively disarmed the men with guns upon contact and the room took on an odd smoky gray hue, as a single silhouette remained standing in between the remaining billows of damaged machinery that were now experiencing severe misfires.

The scientist with the round glasses, Zola, his mind supplies, was lying seemingly unconscious on the floor. Bucky found himself pushing his hand forward, breaking the glass that stood between him and the sounds of the room outside, so he could discover more about this strange phenomenon and whether or not it was simply a hallucinogenic vision created by his strained mind.

As the glass shattered, the person encompassed by the smoke shadowed silhouette turned to look in his direction and swiftly made their way over to him, the man’s appearance becoming clearer and more and more familiar with each step.

“…Bucky?” a man’s voice called out in what sounded like tired hope. “Please, tell me I’ve found you.”

“Steve…” Bucky croaked through larynx worn from screaming, most of which Bucky remembers fuzzily at best. He just knows that the scientists lying on the floor had peered at him as if interested in the increased volume of his reactions, wanting to know how much pain was possible before he was too worn down to vocalize it. “They said you were…dead, pal. You wanna…explain…that?”

Steve sighed, an exhausted sound that made him seem aged now that Bucky could get a good look at him through the clearing smoke. Then he wrenched open the metal chamber encasing Bucky’s body and moved to catch him before Bucky stumbled as he tried to take his first steps outside of it.

Bucky curved his arm around Steve’s as the man supported his movements.

“You actually came for me again, punk. Don’t think there’s anything I wanted more’n this in my entire life, outside of that pie your Ma baked me for my sixteenth” Bucky quipped, offering Steve a wayward smile and a wink.

“You jerk. I can’t believe you’re still here…alive” Steve replied as he couldn’t help the tears that fell from his face, even as he surveyed the room. “I-I couldn’t understand when the Russian troops I ran into during my hike back from…started talking about an American soldier getting brought in with a busted arm. These weren’t just any soldiers either, one of them was an agent that Peggy slipped off to in Austria one time. I wouldn’t even have known about him if it hadn’t been for the blockade cutting him off from his handler.”

“Knew there was more to that than you let on” Bucky rebuffed him. “Damn Russians were the ones who brought me in…I don’t know when or how long it’s been.”

“Years, Buck” Steve muttered. “I’ve been…out of the fight just that long too. Tell you after we’ve gotten the hell out of this place.”

“You got a plan, Stevie?”

“I do” Steve admitted. “I might’ve thought it up during the long walk here and…in and out of those other bases I went through to find you.”

Bucky blinked.

“Other bases? I thought the Germans’d wiped most of them out?”

“It’s been years, Buck.”

“War’s over, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so, Buck. We won, but…there’s another one going on now and I’m finding more and more that I don’t want to be a part of it.”

“Never thought I’d see the day when you sat out on a fight” Bucky said, finding his bearings as Steve continued to support him and leading them both out of the facility as swiftly as was possible.

“I will when the fight’s changed and the people involved don’t seem know what it’s about anymore. They just keep trying to outgun the each other with weapons, allies, and anything you could think of” Steve countered.

“Sounds more like they’re giving each the cold shoulder, than fightin’ a war” Bucky admitted. ”I just want to find a place that doesn’t have anyone who knows about us and sleep for a year.”

Steve nodded.

“Then that’s what we’ll do. There are places around here that don’t get much notice. I only know, because that’s where I’ve been living for the past few weeks.”

There were abandoned ghettos and scorched farm land that still lay nearly untouched amidst the Russian terrain. Many of them contained a touch of residual radiation or were simply overgrown when the forest crept in to retake the land. Steve had made a habit of laying low in these places, because the radiation and didn’t affect him and most predators were deterred by the instability of the structures themselves and the near constant crumbling of wooden boards.

“It’s the best I’ve got, Bucky” Steve explained as he lead the way to his most recent hideaway.

“As long as I’m through with that place, you can take me anywhere, punk” Bucky retorted, enjoying the feel of fresh air for the first time in ages.

“It’s only temporary though” Steve promised. “I’ve got a plan to get us the hell out of here as soon as I can.”

“Glad to hear it. I don’t want to waste any more time in this goddamn place than I have to.”

“Try hiking through Siberia” Steve muttered.

Bucky blinked.

“Why would you be that far north, Stevie?”

“It’s a long story.”

“M’not going anywhere” Bucky answered.

“You better not, I can’t handle you being gone a third time, Buck.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it” Bucky agreed. “So tell me how you got to be here instead of home with Carter?”

“Not sure that would’ve happened anyway” Steve admitted somewhat bashfully. “Things had already changed between us before I… I’ll start at the beginning…”

Steve had barely made it out of the plane, as much as he knew they might barely make it out of this. He knew they would, just now how far they’d make it before someone like Stark or Peggy found them.

He wasn’t willing to risk Bucky possibly being “useful” to the government, any government. So he’d settle for finding a place to lay low and treat Bucky’s injuries.

It was 1947, Steve knew, the year dated on every piece of paperwork in that lab, and the world must still be putting itself back together. Enough so that they could keep off anyone’s radar and disappear into the makings of a new world that was still being sewn into place.

Then and only then would it be safe to contact the Howling Commandos.

"Alright pal, you know I'm with you til the end of the line."

"Yeah Buck, me too...always."


End file.
